Nov. 13, 2012

Written by

Michelle Gladden

@GladdenAPP

POINT PLEASANT BEACH — It’s over two weeks since superstorm Sandy came ashore but Globetrotter owner Dean E. Fengya is just starting to assess the damage at the Ocean Avenue business he created 18 years ago.

The delay was due to circumstances, he said.

His small business sits just beyond the Route 35 intersection with the railroad tracks bordering Bay Head, where ocean waters converged with the rising Twilight Lake. Once a nearby pumping station failed, immediate entry was off-limits. Coupled with the vast damage to Bay Head homes along East Avenue and the need to deter looters, the area in front of his store became a National Guard security post.

Now that flood waters have receded and residential evacuations in both Point Pleasant Beach and Bay Head have been lifted, a return to the shop was permitted.

What Fengya found was layers of dark pungent grit coating the one-of-a-kind wares he’s assembled here through the years.

“Initially, I felt sad and hollow,” Fengya said. “I just know that there are a lot of people that are struggling. There are a lot of people who have had loss of life, loss of their homes.”

Fengya, 53, has traveled to well over 100 countries in the past 25-plus years collecting artisan works to sell locally. Now, his life’s work lies in the balance of what can be recovered.

“I have waves of sadness,” he said. “But I’m a survivor.”

As he works to assess the extent of the damage to woven baskets from Laos, embroidered silk bags, jewelry, scarves, sarongs, and hand-blown glass there is still the 19th-century hand-carved teak furniture from India and other rare antiques shipped from foreign lands to appraise.

“I’m living in the moment,” he said. “The moment is very difficult but the Buddhists say life is full of joy and anguish. I’ve had 18 years of joy here. At the end of the day, nothing is permanent and I’m OK.”

Outside, the landscape of Vietnamese cobalt blue planters seems to have done relatively well, but inside the dank must of stale water saturates the wares created by those he’s befriended in foreign lands like Cambodia, Burma, Sri Lanka, Tibet and Nepal.

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For Fengya, this is not just a small business based on the summation of his travels, but also of his life here, which began as a waiter and a lifeguard at the nearby Osborne Beach in Bay Head. Once he’d saved enough money, he opened the store founded on the people, experiences and things seen while backpacking abroad.

“Every year that I made money I put it back into the store,” Fengya said. “I built this. I never expected it to all be washed away in one fell swoop.”

Next door, fellow small business owner John Wynne, 54, of Beach Peddler Bike Rentals is also unsure of his survival here.

With the extent of the coastline devastation, the struggles most families will face as the work toward a sense of normalcy, the specialized small business owners are questioning whether a sustainable market will remain open to them.

“Do I want to (reopen)? That is the question,” Wynne said. “It’s going to be a tight summer here.”

The shop Wynne opened just four years ago caters to vacationers who spend a chunk of their summer holiday along the Jersey Shore.

With most of his business coming from those weekly or monthly summer renters, Wynne said he fears the vast amount of flood damage to those eastside properties in Point Pleasant Beach and in neighboring Bay Head and Mantoloking will mean fewer extended visitors and more day-trippers.

“Those who own the summer rentals will need time to (refurbish) them,” he said.